I guess McCarthy is thorn in the conservative side when talking about the Cold war. Best forgotten eh?

Hmmm – so you are now policing tangents – or only tangents expressed by those who’s views you don’t happen to fully agree with? Plenty of tangents on the other threads. If Reagan won the Cold War – then McCarthy played a role during that struggle. And Reagan stood up to McCarthy’s game of whipping up rabid anti-communism. I’m happy discuss Reagan’s role but we also need context and the roles played by others. How pivotal do you believe Gorbachev was to the downfall of the USSR. Surely he’s not a tangent in this is he!? lol

I would advise H.R. not to get sucked in to playing your game. Stick to the topic.

Well Hard Right is discussing appeasers of Communism and the Cold War. So how big a link do you need to McCarthy?

So what’s your views on McCarthy?

As for the other dem presidents before carter, they would today be considered moderate Republicans and run out of the dem party like Lieberman was. It should also be pointed out that leftwing dems in Congress were in fact some of the biggest appeasers of communism and did everything they could to undermine our efforts in the Cold War.
That is why I meet a lot of Independants that used to be dems. They tell me they didn’t leave the party, it left them.

BTW, my father guarded carter of a few ocassions as well as Reagan.

Carter: Elitest, arrogant jerk who made clear how much he disliked those pulling Secret Service duty. He regarded them a nuissance.

Reagan: Very friendly and warm, remembered the agents names and even whether they were married or had kids.

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA~!!!!!

Larry, you really should quit your day job and just focus on your stand up comedy routine. Try that line in any serious school of history or international relations and the laughter will be deafening.

You are so out of touch with historical reality that it ain’t funny.

You cite Gorbachev earlier…. maybe you’d like to know that he admits that SDI forced the Soviets to concede in the Cold War.

Do me a favor and watch the video before you comment again with such blatant ignorance and revisionist viewpoints.

P.S. I know Brzezinski personally. He rarely gave Carter credit for anything.

Thanks for your perspective. Here’s a starter reference regarding Jimmy Carter and the Afghan War:

http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html

Is it your opinion that the Iranian hostage situation and, therefore, Iranian “distraction” was in some way the fault of the Carter administration? Perhaps Carter was also personally responsible for the failure of the rescue mission?

My comments were mainly directed at the insinuation that Democrats were Communist “appeasers” during the Cold War era — it’s simply not true.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA

Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who originated the strategy of supporting the Afghans against the Soviets.

“Originated”? Interesting…I’ll like to look into that further. And here I thought Carter’s biggest contribution to fighting the Cold War was an Olympic boycott.

The Soviet Union was emboldened by Carter’s “distractions” with Iran and the hostage situation into launching a full-scale invasion of Afghanistan. Carter only belatedly ordered warships and a defense buildup, after the fact.

In March of 1985, it was Reagan who developed a plan to arm Afghans with powerful Stinger antiaircraft missiles. CIA tried to keep the Pentagon out of it, so as to not disrupt low-level operations the CIA was engaged in, but Reagan and some CIA officers nevertheless provided Afghan anti-communist fighters Stinger missiles to shoot down Soviet helicopters and fighters.

The Soviet/Afghan War did vastly more to bring down the Evil Empire than did the hypothetical threat of Star Wars.

Your argument itself is a hypothetical. The former Soviet ambassador to the U.S. stated that “It’s clear SDI accelerated our catastrophe by at least five years.”

From the back-and-forth letters between Reagan and Soviet leaders, I think there’s no question that the Soviets were greatly threatened, obsessed, distracted, and preoccupied with SDI. Reagan’s push for it contributed to the demise of the Soviet Union.

The idea that anything at all which Reagan did was singularly responsible for causing the Soviets to implode is ludicrous.

Agreed. But what is equally ludicrous is how those on your side of the equation wish to minimize the significance of Reagan’s role in the Soviet end-game. Of course there was no singular force responsible for the fall of the Soviet empire. However, Reagan was a central figure in the fight.

What the Cold War did was to set the stage for a leader like Gorbachev, who was the right person at the right time to preside over the collapse of the Evil Empire.

There you go again….Gorbechev couldn’t have done it without Reagan, another leader who was in the right place at the right time, when we needed a real leader.

Compare the blood prices for defeating the other leftist abomination (fascism) with the blood price for defeating the original leftist abomination and get back to me.

If you are measuring the cost of defeating the Soviet Union purely in specie, then you miss the point.

Let’s look at all the Cold War era Democratic Presidents:

Democratic President Truman: Berlin Airlift

Democratic President Kennedy: Cuban Missile Crisis

Democratic President Johnson: Vietnam War

Democratic President Jimmy Carter, who originated the strategy of supporting the Afghans against the Soviets. The Soviet/Afghan War did vastly more to bring down the Evil Empire than did the hypothetical threat of Star Wars.

Reagan simply continued the bipartisan US policy of continuing the Cold War which Truman had initially “declared.” The idea that anything at all which Reagan did was singularly responsible for causing the Soviets to implode is ludicrous. Had anyone but Gorbachev been in power (e.g. had Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev lived another 20 years), the Soviets would have remained the Soviets. What the Cold War did was to set the stage for a leader like Gorbachev, who was the right person at the right time to preside over the collapse of the Evil Empire.

- Larry Weisenthal/Huntington Beach, CA